Xbox One X, confusing name and still not convinced about these power upgrades mid cycle. Yes, Forza looks pretty and running in 4k 60FPS will be nice for those people who have the TVs, but I'm not seeing anything that really justifies the cost for the average gamer. For the most part they just play the same games, with the same general experience.

New Bioware game looks amazing, though the scripted gameplay trailers don't give much away.

Think the best thing I've seen so far was The Last Night and Sea Of Theives is looking good.

Scorpio isn't meant for the average gamer, that's what the Xbox One S is for - the new console is for those who are prepared to fork out for their gaming and AV needs which I'm sure there's plenty of out there. 4k TV's are getting increasingly common to the degree it's hard to find a 1080p TV that isn't an ultra budget TV and the cost is less than I thought, I almost spent that much on my graphics card and that's only a midrange one. Also a troubling factor in the current console wars is the e-pen0s score - a lot of discussions on the PS4/Xbox One are not about the games or anything it's all about the graphics capabilities and it's one of the reasons the PS4 has done much better than the Xbox One is for its slightly higher graphics performance. Therefore I can see a lot of people wanting the new console for bragging rights as sad as that is.

That said, at the moment I don't think I'll buy one as I rarely play on the Xbox, don't have a 4k TV (nor plans to buy one) and with having the two Xbox's I'd probably end up wanting to upgrade the second one if I was used the higher quality on the first. Technically there could be 1080p improvements but it looks like it could be a similar story to the PS4 Pro where they claim the CPU holds them back, Gears of War 4 is getting an update for 4K support on the X but not a framerate improvement - Horde will still be 30fps and it's one of the games where it makes a big difference as it plays a lot better on the PC at 60fps.

I am hoping with the new console using a more conventional architecture (no embedded ram for the GPU any more) that they'll extend the play anywhere system, Gears of War 4 uses it properly and it's superb. The game itself is an excellent port to the PC not just running well but having a great builtin benchmark tool (which assesses the system in each area and warns which settings are too high or too low) plus when you go into the settings, for each one it advises you which part of your system it will affect if you change it (cpu, ram, gpu, vram etc.). Also it works seemlessly with the Xbox One features so you can play with other players on the Xbox One and use party chat just as if you were on the Xbox.

And of course, yes that name is completely stupid...I don't know if there's some secret competition going on for daft console names at the moment but it just seems odd given a lot of the Wii U's failure is attributed to the name and the 3DS/New 3DS are terrible names as well plus PS4 Pro is just odd. I've never liked the Xbox One name and given Microsoft were hyping the new console up as a next generation console that they'd dump the Xbox One name entirely. I did wonder if they'd just keep the Scorpio name but I guess there's potential for confusion between the Xbox One 'S'

The star of the show for me so far is the sequel to Ori and the Blind Forest:

I bought the original game to use up credit on my Xbox so paid the full £17 for it and then a bit more to upgrade to the definitive edition and it's been worth every penny. It's a challenging 2D platformer which feels a bit retro in that regard but unusually instead of going for a 2D pixel art style it's a beautifully rendered 3D (or 2.5D) game with an absolutely stunning soundtrack as well. It's not that long a game but it holds up well to repeated play and each time I've finished it I usually want to go back and go through it again. I finished it again recently and was looking up the studio to see what they were working on and disappointed to find there was nothing however I'm really excited to see there's a sequel on the way. I can't really think of anything else that's caught my eye at all games wise.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

Johnmcl7 wrote:Source of the postAlso a troubling factor in the current console wars is the e-pen0s score - a lot of discussions on the PS4/Xbox One are not about the games or anything it's all about the graphics capabilities and it's one of the reasons the PS4 has done much better than the Xbox One is for its slightly higher graphics performance.

A guy in work, when he was in the market for a console (and who isn't into tech as much as we are) decided to go for the PS4 because he heard it was more powerful. So, yeah, definitely a factor, and it seems it's a bigger factor between these two consoles than, say, PS3 vs X360 was.

I like the name. Microsoft reserve X's for when they are really satisfied with something, e.g. ActiveX, Xbox, etc. so they must be pleased with it! I do like the simple naming convention, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X. None of those nebulous words that they used to be so keen on, like 'Elite', and no clear hierarchy like Standard vs Pro. Gives them a bit of differentiation over each other (although they have confused things by making the XOX smaller than the XOS!)

The One X is in an annoying place cost wise, for me it's slightly too much to be a no brainer but it's not so expensive that I can discount it completely until a price drop, also it's released when we are looking to be on holiday so not ideal. I'll probably end up preordering it just so I'm not rushing around trying to find one after launch, because once it's out I'll want one, just like the Switch. I'm thinking that this is a better investment than a new PC as that is easily twice the price before I even start looking at monitors and desks etc. Even with a new TV, which I've been looking at anyway, I'd probably end up spending less for something that gets more use.

There were a few games in the MS show that looked interesting. The Last Night looked lovely, that Flashback x Blade Runner x Hotline Miami aesthetic! Ashen looked interesting, as did The Artful Escape, and some of the ID @ Xbox stuff.

I was completely uninterested in Anthem after seeing the EA teaser, but that big old vertical slice at the end of the MS show has piqued my interest, if the game looks like that once it is done, and has satisfying gun play like Destiny then I'm sold, and if Bioware can get some story in there as well then Destiny 2 might as well not bother. But I doubt we'll be seeing it for 2 years yet so can't get too excited.

Generally though there's been nothing released for a while that I've been really excited about. I've been in a gaming malaise for well over a year now, I keep buying stuff because that's what I do but kinda just feels like wasted money.

Johnmcl7 wrote:Source of the postAlso a troubling factor in the current console wars is the e-pen0s score - a lot of discussions on the PS4/Xbox One are not about the games or anything it's all about the graphics capabilities and it's one of the reasons the PS4 has done much better than the Xbox One is for its slightly higher graphics performance.

A guy in work, when he was in the market for a console (and who isn't into tech as much as we are) decided to go for the PS4 because he heard it was more powerful. So, yeah, definitely a factor, and it seems it's a bigger factor between these two consoles than, say, PS3 vs X360 was.

I guess it's perhaps because the Xbox One and PS4 were so similar (and the PS3/Xbox 360 weren't) that allowed such a direct comparison, the general belief I saw on general forums was that the PS4 was a proper 1080p console and the Xbox One wasn't so buy a PS4. Even putting aside that's not the reality and the difference in performance between the two was small, the exclusives on the platform, which platform my friends were on and the controller design are far more important to me. Hotukdeals can be quite eye opening at times, when the 2DS came out there were people saying it was a marketting gimmick and it was pointless as it already existed which initially confused me but then I realised people thought the 3DS was simply a 3D version of the 3DS, not a next generation console. Similarly the Wii U was seen as a Wii with a giant controller rather than the next generation console it was which I think largely contributed to it being an apparent failure despite being a great console with some fantastic first party games.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

I didn't want to watch the Anthem trailer as I find it frustrating seeing games early on knowing that there's still a long wait for them which even after all that, the game might turn out to be rubbish and/or little like it did originally. However I gave it a go this evening and definitely impressed by it and it's a lot closer to Destiny than I was expecting, it felt more like Destiny done correctly. I loved the more seemless transition out of the city area, the design of the power armour the more open looking world (Destiny's world looked amazing until you realise there's very little of it you can actually play in) and hopefully a decent story which is where Destiny has been terrible at.

Bethesda have shown off Doom and Fallout in VR which will hopefully be good particularly as they seem to be taking it seriously and putting a lot of effort into making proper VR games rather than just adding a VR feature to their existing games. The first person 'bullet-fu' shooter Raw Data is one of my favourite games in VR and the idea of a similar game in the Doom world is definitely something to look forward to.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

Sony didn't seem to bring anything to E3 this year but reading the comments on some articles it seems they had the best presser, however despite Shadow of the Colossus and maybe the multi platform Monster Hunter there didn't seem to be anything surprising or interesting. They also seem to have announced a load of stuff in a pre show stream, which seems like a really weird move when the actual show was so light on content, from what I can see.

I find it weird that Sony are creating Spider-man as an exclusive, seems like a pretty mean spirited business decision when all the old Spider-man games were multi platform.

scarbunny wrote:Source of the postI find it weird that Sony are creating Spider-man as an exclusive, seems like a pretty mean spirited business decision when all the old Spider-man games were multi platform.

Yeah, I don't get that, mainly because I doubt it will be a system seller. May as well cast the net wide and sell as many copies as they can.

scarbunny wrote:Source of the post Sony didn't seem to bring anything to E3 this year but reading the comments on some articles it seems they had the best presser, however despite Shadow of the Colossus and maybe the multi platform Monster Hunter there didn't seem to be anything surprising or interesting. They also seem to have announced a load of stuff in a pre show stream, which seems like a really weird move when the actual show was so light on content, from what I can see.

I read an article claiming it's a change in focus for Sony from presenting to the press to instead presenting to the public more directly and that the public were mostly happy with just getting trailers and gameplay footage. I was also reading an article by a journalist effectively complaining about E3 being open to the public but there is clearly a change in general with a more direct relationship with publishers and developers, I used to always read review sites before buying a game but I very rarely do now.

Definitely pleased to see another Metroid game as I've been really missing one after playing the flawed Recore which feels like a not very good Metroid Prime. I was really hoping for an F-Zero announcement given I think they could easily make one by reskinning Mario Kart but sadly not.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire